CARSON CITY, Nev. (KRNV & MyNews4.com) - A Northern Nevada lawmaker says every year people committed to state psychiatric hospitals in our area are still being allowed to buy guns because of a legal loophole.
According to Senator Ben Kieckhefer, every year in Northern Nevada psychiatrists file petitions to commit hundreds of people, but in 2011 and 2012 only seven of those names went on the federal no-buy gun list. That's because Kieckhefer says only seven actually committed by a judge, The rest either fizzled out, voluntarily signed themselves in, or finished treatment before the courts had to intervene.
Because of that Kieckhefer wants anyone who has a petition filed against them by a physiatrist to go on the list, no matter if a judge actually commits them or not. The senator says after three years someone would have the chance to petition the court to have their name removed from the list. he also says he's been working on this bill for about a month, and there's still a lot of fine-tuning left to do.
